Battlefield 3 Premium Edition out now in North America

With the new Armored Killdownloadable content available today for all Battlefield 3 Premium members, Electronic Arts and DICE are putting out a Battlefield 3 Premium Edition at retail for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. It's available as of today in North America and Europe will get it on September 13.

This version of the game will retail for $59.99. Given that bump up in price, you're getting a fair amount of stuff. Beyond Battlefield 3 itself, the package includes a Premium subscription (granting access to the Back to Karkand, Close Quarters, and Armored Kill expansions) and the "multiplayer head-start kit."

Such kits -- which give players automatic unlocks for certain weapons, gadgets, and vehicles upgrades -- always seemed a bit silly to me. In this specific case, where people are coming into a well-developed community, that seems much less sketchy.

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